Why Anarchists Like Zen? A Libertarian Reading of Shinran (1173–1263)^97
community to say the nenbutsu “not with thoughts of themselves,
but for the sake of the imperial court and for the sake of the
people of the country”. He also recommends people whose shin-
jin is settled to say it “with the wish, ‘May there be peace in the
world, and may the Buddha’s teaching spread’”.^63 This fragment
has been used to imply that Shinran paid homage to the emperor
and implicitly endorsed the obo-buppo ideology.^64 However, the
wish for the teachings to spread and the saying of the nenbutsu
“for the sake of the imperial court” are not explicitly connected
in the letter. Moreover, saying the nenbutsu for the court is an act
of ambiguous devotion. As much as it could signify a bow to the
emperor’s authority, we should not forget that Shinran frequently
encouraged his followers to say the nenbutsu for their enemies
(e.g. those obstructing the nenbutsu).
Using a language that resembles that of his diatribe against the
emperor and his minister, Shinran speaks of those authorities who
persecuted his movement as “people lacking eyes” and “people
lacking ears” because they “perform deeds that will bring about
the suppression of the nembutsu and act out of malice toward
people of the nembutsu”.^65 Shinran’s advice on how to deal with
nenbutsu opponents is thus articulated for his followers: “without
bearing any ill toward such persons, you should keep in mind the
thought that, saying the nembutsu, you are to help them”.^66 The
fact that Shinran encourages his followers to say the nenbutsu for
a given individual does not necessarily mean that homage is paid
to that individual, as the second instance clearly shows. Far from
paying respects or accepting the authority of “people lacking ears”
and “people lacking eyes”, Shinran’s response is a clear gesture of
resistance couched in the all-inclusive language of Buddhist com-
passion. The reference to the imperial court does not necessarily
signify an implicit relationship of mutual dependence or cooper-
ation, but an expression of the Buddha’s compassion, which em-
braces friends and enemies alike.
By drawing this basic separation between buppo and obo,
Shinran can be said to on one hand preempt the emergence of
a Jodo Shinshu fundamentalist politics with aspirations to take
over the state, and on the other resist state interference aimed at
turning the religious teachings and community into a mechanism